


Lily Evans and the Decidedly Dreadful Day

by Scarmander



Series: One Day a Year - A Jily Journey [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), This is their sixth year, aka before they start dating, i'll do a part 3 after that, it's part 2 of an anthology basically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-10-27 19:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20765933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarmander/pseuds/Scarmander
Summary: When Lily Evans wakes up on February 19th, 1977, she sees red. Quite literally. Red everywhere. But that's the least of her concerns for the day.Part 2 of "One Day a Year - A Jily Journey" in which I basically select one day per school year to explore James and Lily's relationship as they grow up and eventually become a couple.





	1. Cheerful Cherubs and Valentine Nightmares

**Lily Evans and the Decidedly Dreadful Day**

**Chapter 1: Cheerful Cherubs and Valentine Nightmares**

When Lily Evans wakes up on February 19th, 1977, she sees red. Quite literally. Red everywhere. Her entire bed is surrounded by a red cocoon of velvety fabric. This is not the sight she usually wakes up to. It actually takes her a few seconds to realize what she is seeing, with one eye open – the other one being firmly set on her going back to sleep – before the strangeness of the red mystery makes her half-begrudgingly decide to open the other one. She knows what is happening now, with both eyes open, this makes a bit more sense. Or as much sense as this peculiar situation can make.

So, this is what little information Lily has gathered so far about this _situation_ she’s finding herself stuck in: her bed's crimson red curtains are drawn, which she does not remember doing when she got to bed last night. And that’s about it. And_ that_, of all things, does not make sense, not all. She never draws the curtains. Never. She's both too tired and too lazy to care about that, comes bed time. And it's not like she needs to close them, anyway, she's not bothered by the morning light that pours in from the small windows of the tower and the curtains are really heavy and she doesn't want to have to struggle trying to find her wand to open them to prevent pulling her arm’s muscles trying to open it without magic. She's thought about this a lot, actually. There really aren’t that many advantages to drawing the curtains. And so she doesn’t. It’s actually a thing. A quirk. A characteristic. Her dorm mates know that about her. It is the sort of detail that people notice. So. This is quite strange. Unheard of, even. None of her friends would have drawn them in her sleep. That wouldn’t make sense.

Was it a mistake? It must have been, Lily thinks. Maybe a well-intentioned house elf sneaked in last night and drew them? But they’d never done it before, she thinks.

Lily is quite puzzled by the event.

Therefore, she decides to stare at the thick red fabric for a while, rubbing her eyes and yawning a couple of times, trying to find the meaning of this decidedly strange turn of events. This is surely a sign. She’s decided as much, in the five minutes that have passed since she first started staring at the crimson velvet. She’s laying on her right side, her right hand extended in a way that allows her to stroke her index finger on the foreign object in front of her. She’s examining it carefully, as if it might start telling her the meaning of its presence.

She’s half-decided that the curtains are an omen of death – or war, or love, what’s with the abundance of meaning for red, anyway? – before she realizes that something – or rather someone – is making noises right outside the confinement of her bed. But the voices she hears are not those of her dorm mates. They’re too shrill and mechanical to be human. And that simply does not make sense.

This is definitely not a normal way to begin her day.

So, Lily Evans sits up on folded knees, grabs the knitted cardigan that lays at the bottom of her bed – Merlin isn't it cold in here without the warmth of her blanket – puts it on and grasps at the bed's curtains.

She delicately tugs at them, both curious of what's out there and afraid of what she might see. She only has one eye to look out, but Merlin if she doesn't see more than she had ever thought possible from here.

And Merlin's bloody underpants if she doesn't wish she had just stayed under that warm blanket of hers.

Her dorm is a bloody red mess of rose petals and floating cherubs. She's never seen it like this. Not in her six years at Hogwarts, not once. And she'd thought she'd seen it all. Jane had once entirely decorated their dorm for Halloween, when they were thirteen and still giddy at the idea of monsters and scary stories told in the dark.

“It's not even Valentine's day any more!” Lily hears Dorcas complain, one human voice in the midst of mechanical shrillness. Lily can make out some sort of rhythmic music playing softly. “Who the hell did this?” Dorcas continues.

Lily tries to get a good look at Dorcas, but it's very hard to do so, from where she's sitting, and with one eye to boot, so she pulls the curtains a bit further apart, so that her whole face can stick out of it, the fabric tickling her earlobes. But that doesn’t help either.

All she can see from here is Dahlia Fletcher’s bed, who is another one of her dorm mates and a close friend, both of their bedside tables, and what looks like Dorcas Meadowe’s at the foot of Dahlia’s bed. Oh, and about a dozen Cheerful Cherubs, which are one of the worst things Lily has ever had to face in her entire life. They have been everywhere in the past few weeks. People have been ordering them by the boxes. They are basically the trendiest product Hogwarts has ever seen in the six years Lily has attended the school. All they do is sing a song you’ve told them to sing, float around and throw whatever item you’ve given them to throw. Be it marbles, confetti, glitter, dungbombs… Lily has seen it all and has had to confiscate quite a number of those floating, bloated creatures. They’re horrid-looking, their spells seem to last forever and they never sing on-tune. She hates them. Every bloody single one of them and their bloody lacy collars and their tiny bloated hands and pink puffy faces.

“Me!” someone says. It sounds like Dahlia, and it most certainly is. There is a small pause. “Oh don’t look at me like that! He asked me to! I said I would do it, he looked so happy! I couldn't say no to him! She's going to be so thrilled!” Dahlia continues, and even though she’s out of sight from this angle, Lily gathers that she’s facing Dorcas.

Lily wonders what the bloody hell she's talking about. Who's the “he”? Who's the “she”? This is a really weird way to start her day. And to say that all she wanted to do today was get up, get dressed, go downstairs to have breakfast, head to Hogsmeade for a short trip – she is just going to go get a Butterbeer in Hogsmeade, then grab some candy from Honeydukes and a few more quills from Scrivenshaft’s – and then head right back to the Common Room, read a book, play with Sir Lancelot (the kitten her mum had gifted her for Christmas) and watch the fireplace from her spot on _her_ couch. It was hers, and only hers, after all, ever since James Potter had bestowed it upon her last May. See, the thing was that she – Lily, that is – had been having a terribly lousy day and her feet had terribly _lousingly _hurt and those damn friends of his had organized a party in the common room. And she’d whined to James about how tired she had been for a while, and he’d managed to convince her to go to the party by bribing her with a couch for herself. And sure, she hadn’t actually had that much time to sit on that couch, but still… That thing about ‘it’s the thought that counts’? Completely and absolutely true. It is _her_ couch now. Unofficially. But also very very official when she says it with her strong Prefect-y voice, the one she uses to get the Second Years to listen to her.

They’re fine, James and her, they’re friends, she muses, forgetting about the curtains and the cherubs for a moment. Well, not _friends_, per se, but friendly acquaintances, at the very least. Friendly. That’s what they are. James and her. Friendly acquaintances. They chat idly when they cross paths, she says ‘hello’ to him at breakfast, and she’s quite happy to cheer him on during his Quidditch matches – she’s happy to say he hasn’t lost one all season. But of course he hasn’t. It seems inconceivable to her, somehow, that James Potter could lose at anything. He’s better than her in most of their classes, and it sometimes feels very unfair of him to be that good at everything all the time. She’d enjoyed her flying lessons, in her first year here, but she’d never been very good at it. Although she has to admit that it had been so very discouraging to watch him thrive on his first try. But he’d been offered his first broom when he was three years old, she’d come to learn this essential bit of information since then. It would have done wonders for her ego had she known about that five years ago. He had also told her, a few months ago, half blushing, that his father was a genius potion-brewer who had taught him all the essentials when he was barely old enough to know what he was doing. “I was so small,” he had then told her. “That I couldn’t see what the inside of the cauldron looked like.” “That’s why you’re so good at potions without even trying! How unfair!” Lily had laughed as she’d watched his face turn a tiny bit pinker.

But James’ success isn’t just due to the fact he has had the privilege of being born in a wizarding family. No, far from that. Lily has known that for years. He really is just _that_ talented from birth. It’s just like him, to be good at everything without looking like he tries very hard, Lily ponders. But she actually sees him in the Library sometimes, at one of the tables near the windows, the light shining on his skin and into his eyes, making him squint at his books or unfolded parchments, he is always either deep in thoughts or reading intensely. She never manages to meet his gaze to wave and smile at him. He’s been very quiet, actually, this year. They sometimes can go for almost a week without a single prank disturbing the Common Room’s noisiness. It’s almost too quiet for Lily’s taste. Everything is a bit too quiet, too easy, too simple these days. It feels unnatural, somehow. Wrong, even. She likes the noisy, messy laughter and the ecstatic looks on James’ and his friends’ faces after they have executed their misdeeds and she has to pretend to frown and scorn.

Lily’s thoughts are abruptly interrupted when, what strangely resembles a shrunken goblin head dressed in pinkish frills and lace, floats close enough to her to sprinkle her with a tiny, pink and puffy fistful of heart-shaped glittery confetti. And bloody hell if it’s not the itchiest thing on the planet.

“Yeah well, someone better wake her up, so that this mess can vanish out the window!” Dorcas groans, as Lily tries – and clearly fails – to shake the tiny hearts off her face. They’re sticking to her skin like microscopic leaches and Lily has half a mind to set her face on fire to get rid of the tickling sensation.

And it is at this very precise moment that Dorcas turns around and sees Lily – or rather, the only bit of Lily poking out of the curtains, which unfortunately happens to be her head and one of her hands. Which wouldn’t be that much of a fright if Lily weren’t rabidly half-slapping the one with the other to try and get rid of confetti. Quite a sight. Which might be why she gasps lightly when she sees Lily.

“Oh, well! She’s awake now, Dali!” Dorcas calls out, seemingly recovered from the sheer shock of having to look at Lily’s face. She’s smirking. Of course she is.

“What’s going on?” Lily dares to ask out loud. “What the hell is this on my face?” It’s been nearly ten minutes since she has first opened her eyes now, and her mind still hasn’t really caught on with reality yet.

“You tell me,” Dorcas sighs, putting her hands on her hips. “I woke up to this entire ordeal. I think he’s about to propose to you or something.”

“Who?” Lily questions, feeling suddenly very overwhelmed. Her voice is barely more than a whisper.

“Who do you think?” Mary answers, Lily hadn’t even seen her yet, from her little hideaway spot in the confines of her bed.

Lily decides it’s time she let go of the curtains. She actually gets out of her bed, never letting her eyes stray away from the windowed wall’s side of the room, grabs her wand from her bedside table and opens the curtains with a quick flick and then vanishes the confetti off her face. Sweet, sweet relief. The itching is gone, now, and she is left with the fullness of dread filling her stomach.

Lily knows who they’re all talking about. She’s just not sure she wants to turn around and see this whole ordeal. It seems surreal. Surely he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.

It’s not like they have been dating for that long, either. He hadn’t done anything like that for her birthday, a few weeks ago. Why would he do something like this today, of all days? Especially since they… Oh, she realizes, he’s apologizing. That’s what this is. He’s apologizing for the fight they had on Valentine's day. They haven’t talked since then. Of course he’s trying to apologize now. Of course he’s making a show of this. Of bloody fucking course.

She turns around, very slowly. Merlin if she’s not the biggest coward on Earth, right now.

Truth is, she’s not ready to forgive him, not at all, not in the slightest. _He_ had crossed a line, last Valentine's day. This was not her fault.

As relationships went, theirs had been a fairly simple, straightforward one, up until now. This has been their first fight since they had first started dating, as a matter of fact. And that was three months ago, now.

It had all begun at Slughorn’s Christmas party. Well, at the Slug club’s last meeting before the Christmas party, if she were to be thorough in her retelling of the events. Dirk Cresswell – because _he_ had to have a name, after all, even if Lily wasn’t so keen on mentioning it these days – a gawky boy with grey robes, mousy blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a pinkish complexion, had gingerly sat down next to her, shyly asking for her permission, and she’d smiled warmly at him. It had seemed apparent to Lily that this was his first meeting. She had never even seen him there, actually. And so she told him so.

“Is this your first time here?”

He had sighed nervously and had nodded before he’d opened his mouth a couple of times, looking as if he was looking for the right answer and then at last he had begun talking to her, his eyes darting around the room, never quite stopping in one spot for too long.

“Yes, I don’t know what to expect,” he’d started, looking at her for a few seconds before looking away once more. “He said it was just dinner and a nice little chat with like-minded fellows, I don’t know what that means. I practically don’t know anyone here. My name’s Dirk, by the way. Dirk Cresswell,” he had said very rapidly, before extending his hand to her. She’d smiled in return and had shaken his warm and slightly clammy hands, trying to catch his gaze, before Slughorn’s arrival made them both turn their heads. Dirk had nearly whimpered right on the spot when the professor had begun talking.

“Don’t worry, he won’t bite, neither will I,” Lily had whispered to him reassuringly as Slughorn greeted the students around the room.

Dirk had smiled shyly in answer, and they’d spent the rest of the evening whispering to each other discreetly, as Lily tried to make him laugh so that he’d feel more comfortable. Professor Slughorn had waited for everyone to get here to introduce Dirk to the rest of the “club” and Dirk had stood up and had waved limply and vaguely in greeting.

“Hi, erm… My name’s Cresswell. Dirk... Dirk Cresswell, that’s my name. I’m a Ravenclaw, fifth year here at Hogwarts. Some of you might know me from Ravenclaw’s chess club? I made it to the final round last year. Anyway, nice to meet all of you… Well. That’s about it, I guess.”

They had eaten and chatted and listened to Slughorn talk about his famous acquaintances and funny little stories. And Lily had spent most of the evening trying to make Dirk feel more at ease. And then Slughorn had announced that he had set a date for his Christmas party right before they were all set to leave.

And Dirk had grabbed her hand right as she’d said goodbye to him and had begun leaving.

“Would you come with me to the party?” he had asked, looking very hopeful. And she couldn’t have said no. She had planned on going either alone or with Dahlia, at first, that was what she had done the year before.

“You know you can bring anyone with you, right? It doesn’t have to be someone from the Slug Club.”

“I know,” he’d said with a slight smile. “But I think I’d rather go with you than anyone else in this school. You’re probably the nicest person I’ve met in a long time.”

And Lily Evans really, _really_ couldn’t have said no to that. Not that she had even wanted to. Not when he had looked so hopeful and not when he had said such nice things to her.

And thus, Lily Evans and Dirk Cresswell had gone to Slughorn’s party together. She had sworn to her entire dormitory that this was _not_ a date, not at all, not in any way, shape or form. No. She was simply helping him mingle with a new crowd he didn’t know at all. And she had not been lying, not really. She had meant it, when she had said it.

It just turned out that the evening had gone in a different direction than she had originally intended it to. Which was no big deal. Really, it hadn’t been a big deal at all.

They had had fun, lots of it, even. They had even danced and laughed and they had talked a lot. And when the party was nearing to an end, he had grabbed her hand, pulled her to a corner of the room, where no one would glance twice, and he had kissed her. And she had kissed him. And then they had laughed and had some more fun and had had to say goodbye, and she had been the one who kissed him that time, and when she had turned around to get back to her dorm, she had done so with a smile on her face.

And that had been the beginning of Lily Evans’ relationship with Dirk Cresswell. A Christmas fairytale, is what Mary MacDonald had called it, when Lily had been sat down on the floor in the middle of the dormitory, and had shared the events of the previous evening with her dorm mates.

They’d been thrilled, every single one of them. Lily hadn’t exactly been the kind of girl who dated, but it wasn’t her fault, not really. She just had had the worst of luck when it came to the sort of boys who fancied her. Mainly because she thought them all arrogant berks.

But Dirk Cresswell was quite the opposite of that. He was shy, and kind, and sweet, and always had something nice to say about everyone else.

And yet, here they were.

The Christmas fairytale foretold by Mary MacDonald had turned into a Valentine’s day nightmare right before her eyes five days ago.

Not that Lily wanted a reminder of the event, no thank you.

“Lily? Are you alright?” Dahlia asks her.

“Why in Merlin's name would you agree to… This!” she exclaims rather dramatically, using her hands to showcase the room.

“But he looked so sad, Lily! I couldn’t say no! And then he looked so happy!”

That was the issue with Dirk Cresswell. He just looked so damn miserable in his natural state that no witch in their right mind would have the audacity or the guts to refuse him anything. Not when his eyes screamed despair and sorrow, not when his pinkish cheeks still had the plumpness of youth, and his mouth could display such a nice set of teeth when he grinned that you always felt you were cheating life itself by denying it the beauty of his smile.

Merlin, Dirk Cresswell and his smile were something else alright, when he wasn’t so hell-bent on ruining their relationship by telling her he didn’t think she cared about him like he did for her.

“Well, you’ve done your deed, now. You can vanish this and we can all go on with our days, I’ll just pretend nothing happened,” Lily huffs, opening the trunk at the end of her bed to pick up the first pair of jeans and the first sweater she sees. Today is definitely not a day for wizard clothes.

“Oh, you can’t do that! He’ll be devastated! He was really hoping that this would mend things up between the two of you!”

Lily stills for a second before turning around, slightly exasperated by this whole ordeal.

“I really don’t see how recreating the nauseating interior décor of everyone’s bloody favourite shop of all, Hogmeade’s one and only Madam Puddifoot’s, is going to help with anything!”

“Well he didn’t specify anything regarding the… you know, the specifics of it all. He just said to hang that banner over there and to make it look romantic! I did what I could, really, I did. I also have a letter to give to you, and I’m sorry for the curtains, I know you hate having them closed. But you almost woke up an hour ago, so I had to close them and put a Silencing Charm on it.

“That was you? I thought I did it and forgot about it. Oh and what about that banner of his? I haven’t seen it. Actually, I don’t know if I even _want_ to see it!”

The situation keeps worsening. A bloody banner. Who the hell asks their girlfriend’s friend to hang apology banners in their dorm? She’s going to get grey hairs from this alone. She’s going to go to Hogsmeade looking like Dumbledore, she just knows it.

“It’s over there,” Dahlia tells her before grabbing her by the hand to show her the frilliest, pinkest, most heart-strewn banner Lily has ever seen. It’s a wonder in its own right. Lily is certain that Dahlia has added her ‘touch’ to it. Dirk would never even have dared putting that much pink and frills on a banner. She’s also quite sure that beneath all those hearts she can read what seems to be the blandest apology message in the entire history of mankind. “I’m sorry Lily. Love, Dirk.”

“We really need to ban those mushy romance novels from the dorm, I think they’re getting to your brain,” Lily just says flatly to Dahlia, ignoring the lacklustre message in its entirety. She would much rather focus on the details instead.

Now, this is not the first time that Dirk has told her he loves her. Valentine's day wasn’t the first time he’d done so either. He had first done that a month and a half ago, as a matter of fact. But it was alright, and even if Lily wasn’t quite sure what _Love_ meant, or what it was, for that matter, she’d told him she loved him back.

She does not know if it was the right thing to do. She has no idea, because she’s not quite sure she loves him at all, actually. Or rather, she’s not sure if she doesn’t love him. It’s not the same thing. Really, it isn’t. There’s a world of difference between not knowing whether you love someone or whether you do not love someone. And Lily just doesn’t know if she doesn’t love him. And so, she’d told him she did. But, the thing is, she really does like him, of that she is quite certain. And she also really really likes kissing him, she’s quite sure of that, too, and it’s sort of alright to have someone who goes with her to stuff like Slughorn’s party or to have someone who will wait for her at lunch to eat with her, or with whom she can go and study in near silence in the Library. It’s quite nice, actually, to hold his hand and to know that he isn’t going to turn evil. Because, that’s the thing about Dirk Cresswell, he is quite incapable of being evil. Of that, too, Lily is quite certain. He is possibly the least threatening boy Lily has ever known. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He simply wouldn’t. And therefore, he would never hurt her.

Or rather, he hadn’t until Valentine's day.

That’s the thing about seemingly perfect boys who won’t ever hurt you. Sometimes, they do. They might not even mean it, they might not even have done it on purpose, they might even be really really sorry to have hurt you. But they’ve done it anyway. And if maybe, maybe, you’ve just been dating them for the safety of it all, well, maybe you’re just a little bit off-put by the realisation that you’re perhaps not as safe as you’d thought.

It’s not that Lily doesn’t love Dirk. Because that would be ridiculous. Girls always fall in love with the nice boys who give them gifts and tell them they’re deeply in love with them. Especially when they hold your hand in public, want to spend time with you in the Library and will go on strolls with you around the school’s grounds. Plus, Dirk Cresswell is a nice and proper boy who is also polite, has neatly coiffed hair, and a pleasant, slightly above-average face. The kind her mum and her mum’s friends would praise when looking at pictures of each other’s children. Lily has heard it so many times before. “Oh, look at that handsome young man!” she’d say. “How he’s grown! Lily, come look at him, very charming, we should introduce two of them, don’t you think, Margaret? Oh, how lovely that would be!” And that was how you knew someone was the right kind of boy to be dating, when you knew, just by looking at him that your mum would describe him as a ‘handsome young man’. That was as much of a universal truth as the sky being blue. And all of that was just about as much information as she had gathered about the subject of _Love_ – capital letter and all – from films, books, friends and various dating advice articles in Dahlia Fletcher’s Witch Weekly magazine.

So, Lily is obviously quite enamoured with Dirk. Really, she is. She definitely is. It’s just that Dirk Cresswell doesn’t think that she is. But that’s not her fault, now, is it? She’s quite certain she loves him, now that she’s thinking about it. It’s just logical.

“Here,” Dahlia tells her, handing her Dirk’s letter and snapping her out of her reverie.

Lily sighs, hesitates, ponders, debates, dithers for an eternity, and finally sighs and takes a step forward to grab the folded yellow parchment off Dahlia’s plump little fingers.

She doesn’t want to read it. She does not want to read a single word off of it. He’s said enough, already, she doesn’t want to know what else he has to say.

“Alright, now, vanish this whole mess away so we can go back to our daily lives. I really want to go buy a Butterbeer right now,” she tells her friends, taking a step back to sit on the trunk at the foot of her bed, and setting down the letter next to her.

“It’s not even 8 in the morning right now,” Mary tells her.

“I didn’t say it had to be the alcoholic kind. Although, now that I’m seventeen… This is looking very tempting. Oh this is what I’m going to do this afternoon, I can definitely tell you that! Ha! And to say I wanted to come back here and play with Sir Lancelot… Has anyone seen him, by the way?”

“He was sleeping on my bed when I woke up,” Mary says and shrugs. “He’s probably gone back downstairs to play with Marlene’s cat again.”

“It’s completely unfair! I want to get drunk in a pub too!” Dorcas whines, talking over Mary. Dorcas doesn’t care much for kitten talk.

“You will next month!” Dahlia cheers her on.

“We’re definitely sneaking out of the castle tonight, I don’t care how but we’re getting to Hogsmeade, I need to celebrate,” Dorcas declares very solemnly.

“I could technically buy the drinks today and then sneak them out to you, you know. No need to sneak out tonight,” Lily points out, raising a shoulder and her eyebrows for emphasis.

“You would do that? Oh Merlin you’re a lifesaver. Let’s turn this into a thing, this afternoon. You’ll wallow in the sorrows of young love, or whatever, and I’ll celebrate in advance.”

“Count me in,” Dahlia interjects. “I’m bored and it’s better than watching yet another snowball fight. It gets so boring after a while, I don’t think I can bear the sight of another snowball.”

“Same,” adds Mary, who’s gone to sit on her bed to brush her hair. “Where are we going, though? The Three Broomsticks or the Hog’s Head?”

“I’m not setting a foot inside the Hog’s Head ever again,” Dorcas answers with a disgusted look on her face.

“Me either!” Lily hears Jane scream from what seems to be the bathroom. “It’s disgusting in there! I’m never walking in goat dung again!”

“Did you hear everything?” Lily screams back at her, surprised by her friend’s ability to overhear conversations from another room.

“YES!” Jane yells, before barging in with a towel wrapped around her torso and another one around her head. “You’re talking way louder than you think, you know. Also, I forgot my bra, move out the way so that I can get to my trunk. Hey Lily, hey Mary, you’re finally up!”

For anyone who might have known Jane and Mary last year, this very simple interaction might be a thing of mystery. Because, and quite miraculously so, after months and months of petty name callings and various types of abuses, Jane and Mary have stopped fighting. Which, to Lily is a huge improvement. They’re better off this way, Mary and Jane, somewhat. Not friends, no, not really. But since they don’t really talk, they don’t really fight any more. Jane is better at this game than Mary. But Mary has been making some efforts as of late. And everyone can agree that that’s an improvement. So what if they’re not best mates like they used to be. Jane has grown closer to Lily and Dorcas and Mary to Dahlia and Marlene, who may not share their dorm because she’s older than them, but is still the greatest to have around. Lily is going to miss her terribly come September, when Marlene will have graduated like the proper adult that she is and Lily will still be attending Hogwarts. It’s incredibly unfair. That’s the thing about birthdays, she thinks, they’re terribly unfair little buggers who want to ruin her friendships with barely older mates.

“We should ask Marlene if she wants to come,” Lily suggests, suddenly missing her friend.

“Oooh! Good idea! I’ll go ask her!” Dahlia says before nearly running out of the room.

“Are you not going to read Dirk’s letter?” Mary asks Lily, nodding towards the folded parchment.

“I don’t think there’s anything in here that might make it better. It’s not my fault he’s an idiot.”

“What has he said to you? Why won’t you tell us anything? Is it that bad? Has he insulted you? Did he try to hurt you? Oh, Lily please tell me he didn’t!” Mary looks like she’s spiralling out of control, a frantic look creasing her forehead.

“Fine, fine!” Lily sighs, conceding. “He said, and mind you, I’m just quoting this: ‘I don’t think you love me at all. You don’t act like you love me, you don’t even look at me like you love me’ right in the middle of the argument we were having. I’m not talking to him any more.”

“What? Are you hearing this?” Mary shrieks in answer, looking at the rest of her dorm mates, trying to gauge their reactions. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Not love him, Lily! Do you not love him?”

“Of course I love him! What kind of question is that?”

“But why would he think you don’t love him, though? Have you done anything that might… I don’t know – don’t look at me like that!”

“I haven’t done anything that might suggest anything! Nothing!” Lily takes a dramatic pause to sigh, opens her mouth to speak up again but changes her mind and, sighing, she concludes, “I’m going to go take a shower.”

“Oh, Lily, come on, don’t be cross!” Mary whines, just as Dorcas’ voice echoes the same sentiment. “Lily, don’t be like that!”

“I’m not!” Lily huffs, hastily grabbing her clothes and heading toward the bathroom.

The door bangs shut behind her. And, alright, maybe she can admit to this now that she’s alone, she is somewhat mad at Mary and even more so at Dirk bloody Cresswell.

And maybe, maybe she is angrier than she ought to be because she has this feeling, deep, very very deep in her guts that tells her that… That maybe he’s not so far off, now, is he?

And maybe that’s what she’s angry about. But she’s not ready to admit to that yet. She’s definitely not.

So, she disrobes and gets in the shower and rubs angrily at her hair and her skin. And she thinks, bloody well damn thinks, like a fool, that she can get a moment all to herself to relax when someone bangs on the door.

“LILY! LILY! I read it! I read the letter! He wants to go on a date with you at lunch!” Mary shouts, seemingly indifferent to Lily’s woes.

And Lily bloody well damn groans.


	2. Galls, Bladders & Belladonnas

**Chapter 2: Galls, ** **B** **ladders, ** **and Belladonnas**

The gall. The utter gall. The utter and complete gall. The _sheer audacity_ of that boy.

“How dare he?” She mutters out loud, staring at the bathroom door in horror.

Lily is reeling. Positively reeling. She’s so _mad. _At him. At her mates, standing right outside the bathroom door. At this school. At this world. At everything that has ever existed in the universe.. How dare he? How bloody dare he? How can he even try to do something like this after they… Oh bloody hell she’s going to have to rip him to shreds.

Dirk Cresswell is dead already. Well, not yet. But soon. She is definitely going to murder him for having the gall to try and ask her on a date. After what happened last week… A date! Of all things!

And so, Lily stays in the shower a great deal longer than she had both planned to and realized she was doing. She was too busy scrubbing fiercely at her skin, so much so that there’s a red spot of irritated skin on her left arm and she only stops to scrub at it once she breaks skin and winces out in pain.

Bloody hell. Bloody fucking hell.

Dirk Cresswell is a dead wizard walking.

She gets out of the shower in a fit of rage, wraps herself in a towel, dries her hair with a swift swish of her wand – there’s this new spell she has learnt about in Witch Weekly, it’s a bit tricky, but if done well, it saves her a lot of time – and puts on the Muggle jeans and the comfiest Muggle sweater she’d grabbed on her way in.

She doesn’t even try to pretend to want to care today.

The second she’s out of the bathroom, Mary assaults her with questions.

“Are you going to go? Lily come on! Answer me! Are you going to go on a date with him?”

“NO!” Lily bellows angrily as she pushes her way out of the small horde of teenaged girls gathered outside the bathroom. “I am _not _bloody going!”

Mary doesn’t even flinch at Lily’s tone and follows her like a lost puppy, trying to get her attention.

“But I did all of this! Look at all I had to do, Lily! Cheerful Cherubs are _so_ hard to charm!” Mary whines.

“Mary, leave her alone,” Marlene intervenes.

“You’re already up?” Lily asks Marlene, pretending Mary isn’t a mere two inches behind her to follow her and pester her with pointless questions.

“Yeah, I wanted to get a head start on my Herbology dissertation, the N.E.W.T.S. are killing me, I got up at six thirty this morning. On a Saturday. This is a bloody disgrace. No one should ever have to wake up that early on the weekend! Anyway, I finished it – oh Mary stop pouting, go get dressed so we can all go get drunk… What was I saying?”

“You finished your essay,” Dorcas tells her, looking up from the same book she has been reading for days, it’s been difficult to even get a word out of her ever since she found out her favourite author was publishing a new book, and yet, she always speaks and listens when Marlene is here.

“Ah, yes. I finished it, the bloody thing took less time than I’d thought it would. I woke up early for nothing. Or, I would have if Fletcher over here hadn’t come to save me from the effects of belladonna onto human bladders.”

“Who’re you calling Fletcher, McKinnon?”

“I’m sorry, Dahlia dearest, your last name is too _fletching_ fetching.”

“I hate you,” Dahlia answers, feigning indifference and turning away from her friend to walk towards the door.

Lily continues walking towards the trunk of her bed in silence, purposefully ignoring the chaos around her.

“Hey! No you don’t! Don’t say that!” Marlene shouts, clearly shocked by Dahlia’s words, which makes Lily turn around to see what’s happening. She sees Marlene grab Dahlia by the arms to spin her around.

“Well, don’t say things like that to me.”

“I’m sorry, Dahlia dearest, you’re the light of my life, please accept my apology.”

“Apology accepted,” Dahlia sighs, and pauses for a second. “Oh alright, stop pouting! I’m smiling! Look! I love you with all my heart!” she raises her voice, pointing a finger at the exaggerated smile on her face. “Are you happy now?”

“Barely… Ow! Don’t you dare! Alright! Fine! Fine, stop poking me!” Marlene shrieks, raising her arms to protect herself from Dahlia’s deft and decidedly dangerous fingers. Lily knows what Marlene’s going through quite well. They’ve fought their fair share of battles, Dahlia and her. Dahlia wins most of them. She is _quite_ deadly indeed.

“I’m drowning in bliss! Stop it!” Marlene continues, half-laughing half yelping in misery and defeat.

“You’re worse than toddlers!” Dorcas scorns, pulling Dahlia away by the waist whilst she struggles to escape. “Stop hurting each other like that, you’re going to poke someone’s eye out,” she pauses for good measure and only lets go of Dahlia when she stops fighting her grasp. “Now please, continue your fascinating tale of bladders and belladonnas.”

Marlene finishes her story, they all have a laugh and they all start  talking  but  Lily stays silent  and  turns back around, pushes up the lid of her trunk  to  start rummaging through  her disorganized mess to find that vial of Murtlap essence she _ knows_ is in there.

“Hey, has anyone seen my Murtlap essence?” she asks out, just in case – it comes out more so like a grumpy huff than anything else, but Lily’s already way too angry to notice or care.

“No,” a few of her friends answer in canon.

“Why?” Mary asks instead. “Have you hurt yourself?”

“It’s nothing, it’s just my arm, I just… Oh here it is, never mind!” Lily says as she brandishes the vial out of her trunk in triumph. She closes her trunk, turns back around again and sits down on top of it.

She does not look at any of them as she rolls up her sleeve, but she hears their noises of disgust and shock.

“What’s happened to you?”

“Is that a rash? Have you had an allergic reaction? If that’s so, you shouldn’t put Murtlap essence on it!”

“It’s nothing, I got a little too enthusiastic when I was scrubbing myself in the shower.”

“What are you talking about, ‘enthusiastic’? What does that even mean? It looks like you’ve been mauled by a werewolf in there!” Mary shrieks.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Mary,” Lily rolls her eyes.

“You do need to calm down, dear,” Marlene agrees. Which would have made Lily incredibly happy if it weren’t for the fact that the older witch then decides to set her gaze onto Lily with what seems to be a decisive glance. “And you,” she begins with a pointed finger. “You need to take better care of yourself, stop listening to the rest of them, and learn how to stop stressing out so much.”

“Fine!” Lily agrees curtly, just for the sake of getting Marlene off her back. She is still mulling over Dirk’s stupidity, but does so in silence, with her back turned to the rest of her friends. It’s nicer that way, she doesn’t have to deal with their pesky inquisitive glances.

Better yet, Mary has stopped bothering her. And when Lily is done getting ready, everyone is still talking and she is still silent and angry and bothered and unnerved. This is unfair. He’s ruining one of her only Hogwarts-free days of the school year.

She just cannot simply begin to imagine what has gone through bloody stupid Dirk Cresswell’s stupidly stupid little head and has made him make such a mess of their relationship.

She’s not going on this ‘date’ of his. She is not.

Especially not for lunch. Which reminds her that she’s hungry.

“Breakfast, anyone?” she asks out, slapping both of her hands on her thighs and getting up.

“Oh thank Merlin you’re asking, I’m starving,” Dorcas answers, taking a few steps to go grab her satchel laying on the floor beside her bed.

They make their way down the Gryffindor Tower’s staircase. It’s always a ruckus, when they’re all together the official Gryffindor Girls Gang, as Mary calls them, but even more so when it’s Hogsmeade day. They’re all so much giddier than usual. All save for Lily, who is too busy hating the guts out of Dirk Cresswell to pretend to care about being happy.

She doesn’t want to be happy.

She wants to hate him so much until it consumes her, sets her aflame and turns her into ashes.

She’s moppy. That’s it. Merlin, teenage-hood is quite the worst possible thing Lily has ever been through.

But they’ve already gone down the stairs and the third years are all screeching and shouting in glee, excited by the possibility of exploration and freedom. The Common Room is always a noisy and busy affair, but even more so on Hogsmeade days. So Lily is not quite surprised by the chaos going down in the circular room she cherishes so much.

She ought to try and calm them down, Prefect’s duty and all that. But she’s quite certain she can’t be bothered to. Not even if McGonagall was looking at her sternly in the eye and telling her to do so.

Authority figures be damned. She is yearning for lawlessness, for chaos, ruckus and mayhem. That, and also a good dose of silence and peace.

She follows her friends through the Common Room’s crowd, and into the cold corridors. They go down and down so many stairs she forgets to count them and they get to the Great Hall much sooner than she had thought.

She had said that she wanted to have some more quiet time, she snorts silently to herself at the sight in front of her.

She ought to have known, she tells herself as much, that there is never a quiet moment to be had in the Great Hall, and so lawless chaos it is. As usual, then, breakfast is a noisy and busy affair, as it perhaps ought to be in such a place. Between the students’ voices, the cutlery and plates and the screeching owls, there is rarely a moment of silence and peace. Save for the few times of the year Lily had gotten up early to have time to work on an essay, she’d rarely been able to sit in silence. Not that she had even wanted to, beforehand. Lily was not really the sort of person who enjoyed the silence very much.

Sure it could be relaxing, if you so happened to be in the right mindset and were actively seeking silence and peace. But eating in silence was rarely a positive experience for Lily. There was something about the comfort of the noisiness and sheer liveliness that came with eating with friends that always made her feel warm and safe.

But Lily Evans is not feeling warm and safe at this particular moment of her life, far from that, really. She’s silently munching on a buttered slice of toasted bread and sipping on pumpkin juice, listening to her friends’ idle morning chatter. Mary asks her what stores she wants to go to, and she’s got half a mind to ignore her to butter another piece of toast, when she notices that someone is staring at her.

James Potter’s gaze is always so terrifyingly unavoidable. It always is. She knows, every single time. She knows when he stares at her, even for a second. It’s like he knows how to get into her brain with a simple stare, and the acknowledgement of his presence always sends jolts of electricity running down her spine. It’s unnerving, truly. _He _is unnerving, him and his stupid smile and intense eyes. Lily’s got half a mind to get up and demand he stop learning and using telepathy this very instant. It’s unfair. It’s completely unfair. He should not be allowed to make her feel this way with something as stupid as a stare. And he definitely should not be allowed to stare at her and disturb her dreary, silent, self-imposed semi-solitary breakfast.

She decides right there, on the spot, in the mere second it takes her to turn her head and look at him, that she ought to research that subject further. Because if there is one thing she is quite certain of at this very instant it’s that there’s some sort of magic involved in James’ staring shenanigans. There is no other possible explanation. It’s just him and his powerful magic prowesses messing with her brain.

She smiles at him, though, puts down her toast and waves. Because there’s not much she can do about his powerful skills and her mother did teach her to be polite, after all.

He smiles back, a broad grin splitting his face as he shoves a hand in his hair. It’s a nervous tick, she’s come to learn over the months since she has started actually talking to him, and he does it a lot. Lily is considering getting up to greet him when Peter, one of his mates, taps on his shoulder and he turns away. She looks at him a second or two longer, just to know if he’ll turn back around. But he does not. And so Lily goes back to her toast and pumpkin juice. He doesn’t seem to know when she stares at him. He never does. Unfair, her brain reminds her. Totally and completely unfair.

It is a sad affair, her breakfast, that is. From where she’s sitting, she can see the Ravenclaw table, and she is somewhat discreetly trying to find a certain shade of mousy blonde hair in the crowd. She wants to see him, to get a glimpse. She wants to see him because she wants to know what in Merlin’s name is wrong with him.

She’s got this scenario all ready in her head, she’ll get up to him… Any minute now. If he just had the decency to show up. It’s incredibly rude of him not to be here when she has scenarios all planned out. Especially the one in which she gets up, walks across the Great Hall towards him, looking very angry and fierce and he sputters in fear at the sight of her. And then, she sits down quietly, not saying a word, and just stares him straight in the eyes, waiting for his apology.

“I’m so sorry, Lily. I really am. I love you with all my heart and I know, I know that you love me with all your heart. I’m terribly sorry I ever doubted it. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Please forgive me, my love,” he would heartfeltly declare to her.

“You have doubted me, it is true,” she would answer, solemn and dignified in her fury, barely looking at him now, and just staring.

“And I beg you to forgive me. It was a mere moment of idiocy.”

“I accept your apology,” she would declare. “But I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“But you can! Lady Evans, you can trust me, I would lay down my life for you!”

And just like that, Lily envisions it clear as day, he would be wearing a medieval armour and they suddenly would just be in the middle of a forest, no longer at Hogwarts. In her mind, he is now sitting atop a white horse and she, now turned into a fair lady dressed in an elegant gown, is laying on her side on a blanket, eating grapes next to a large boulder, out of which the handle of a glimmering silver sword pokes out.

And since in her head it all makes sense, Dirk gasps as he sees the sword.

“You have found it!” he exclaims in awe. “No one has seen it in centuries! You have found it!”

“If what you say is true,” Fierce Dreamy Lily answers and then pauses for good measure. “You will be able to pull it out of the boulder. Prove it to me!”

And Mythical Medieval Dirk gets off his white horse, the sound of clattering metal following his gracious landing.

“I will prove it to you, my fair Lily,” he says, his voice deeper than usual. Mythical Medieval Dirk is more confident and mature than Normal Dirk.

Fierce Dreamy Lily stands up in her red and gold medieval gown, her red hair somehow does not even look bad, because why should it? Fierce Dreamy Lily does not have to deal with clashing hair colours. Fierce Dreamy Lily has got it all figured out.

Mythical Medieval Dirk has made his way up to her, and he takes her hand for a moment, to guide her towards the sword. He lets go of it fairly quickly to take off a pair of leather gloves which he hands off to her, which makes Lily raise an eyebrow in return. Who does he think she is? His gloves servant? How rude of him.

“My dear,” he declares, his voice booming with solemn pride and a hint of uncharacteristic bravery she wishes was real. “Watch as I prove my love to you!”

He puts both of his hands on the sword’s handle, looks at her one more time to wink at her and then closes his eyes in concentration.

And then the sword, gleaming and scintillating, is pulled out of the rock and Dirk brandishes it in the air in triumph, turning away from her in the process. But when when Dirk turns back around, it’s not him she sees. Something happens, deep deep in her mind, and everything changes and shifts and she does not want to have to see Dirk prove his love to her. She knows he loves her, she knows. She does not want to know. But it’s not him she sees anymore, and everything is different now. The sword is still here, the silvery armour still reflects the sunlight and the horse is still quietly blowing raspberries at the grass.

None of this is real, she knows this. And yet. Seeing him like this, instead of her boyfriend… It’s too much, just too much. She’s supposed to love Dirk. She’s supposed to want to marry him and have four kids with him. But it’s not Dirk, and it probably will never be Dirk. The realisation strikes her. She feels like she’s been slapped. And there he is, staring at her, beaming proudly. And it makes more sense, somehow, seeing him like this, chivalrous and proud. It makes sense, and that is the worst news Lily Evans has ever been faced with.

In her mind, she takes a step back, shocked and confused.

“Lily!” someone shouts in the distance.

A hand shakes her off her reverie.

“Are you coming or what?” Marlene asks her, waving her hand in front of Lily’s face.

“What? Yeah, yeah I’m coming. Give me a second.”

She’s still a bit shaken. She does not know why she’d seen him instead of Dirk. She closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath and holds it in for a while. When she opens her eyes, she sees her friends’ worried faces staring back at her.

“Lily?” Mary asks her in a concerned voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it. Blimey, you actually look a bit pale. Are you sick?”

“I’m not. It’s okay – I just… I’m still mad at Dirk.”

“Well, he’s not in the Great Hall any more, so that’s a positive thing, right? Come on, we’ll have so much fun in Hogsmeade!”

Dahlia is tugging on her sleeve, a child-like trait she’s acquired over the years.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!”

Dahlia starts beaming, and tugs on her sleeve one last time as Lily gets up from her seat.

She will not think about what she saw during her daydream. She will not. She will not think about Dirk, either. Hogsmeade is definitely the best possible thing that could happen to her today. She needs to get away from Hogwarts, and its students.

Today is a day for having fun and getting passably drunk at the Three Broomsticks with her best and closest friends.

And so, off to Hogmeade Lily Evans goes, arm in arm with Mary and Dahlia, jolting through Hogwarts’ grounds until they reach the gate and Lily sighs in relief.

Safe at last, she thinks. Safe from those bloody boys and all their messy bloody faces.

But Merlin’s pants if she’s not wrong. Lily Evans will come to realize this at the end of the day: ‘bloody boys’ and their ‘bloody faces’ aren’t as easily avoided as one would think, especially on a day where all of those said boys are allowed to leave the school to go to the very same place Lily is going to. This, coincidentally, will not be the only realisation Lily Evans would come to at the end of the day, there would be several others, as a matter of fact, much bigger and much more unexpected that she will have to be faced with.

But, Lily Evans does not know any of that, right now. And as she laughs at one of Marlene’s imitations of Professor Slughorn, she sort of forgets that the rest of the world exists. And Merlin if that is not the most freeing experience a young witch can ever experience.


End file.
